


October 14th.

by RussianSunflower3



Series: Inktober 2017 [14]
Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Blood, Inktober 2017, M/M, Reincarnation, War, wildflowers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-14
Updated: 2017-10-14
Packaged: 2019-01-17 04:40:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,339
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12357678
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RussianSunflower3/pseuds/RussianSunflower3
Summary: Tooru and Hajime know Reincarnation is real. They’ve been reincarnated many times, having died tragically, always together, always at age 18, always on the 14th October. This time, they were reincarnated into a fantasy world of war against the gods, and the 14th istoday.They can only hope their next reincarnation is in a more peaceful world.





	October 14th.

“Tooru!” At the shout, Tooru spins on his heel, leaping backwards just in time to avoid a fireball launched at him, searing the spot he had been standing on a second earlier.

“Thank you, Hajime!” He clicks his tongue when he realises the flames brushed against his silken blue toga, leaving a burn. He snaps his eyes up to the Fire God, a gigantic being that towers above the battleground, humanoid yet made entirely of flame.

Tooru narrows his eyes in a glare, accepting the challenge as the Fire God prepares another fireball to rain down upon the human revolution. Royal toga singed, Tooru is indiscriminately _pissed_. 

The robe is not just a symbol of his strength, duty, and Royal bloodline, it’s also a precious heirloom, passed down his family for generations and preserved with magic. It’s a symbol of everything he is, everything he’s meant to be, and the hopes his people have in him.

“Hajime, watch my back!” As soon as he commands it, there’s a solid weight against his back, and he takes a second to lean into it comfortingly as he charged up his magic, sky blue runes in 4 circles around his arm like gigantic bracelets, spinning at individual speeds.

“I got you.” The sincere words, so honest and filled with love, almost cancel out the noise of the war. Hajime is not only his right-hand man, but his fiancé. They were supposed to marry _yesterday_ , but this war has dragged on for years, and the gods are not easy to defeat.

“Aurora blue!” The circles converge, and from the gold ring that forms around them, water gushes out in a jet stream towards the Fire God. It hits its target, but this is human magic against a _**God**_.

The God screeches, rebounding from the surge of water, flames dulled in a spot over its chest. The fire begins to creep back, and Tooru growls in frustration that his attack did nothing.

“This is useless! We’ve lost too many warriors to continue!” Fending off vines from the Glade Goddess, Hajime keeps his voice low.

“So? Will you surrender then?”

“Never! I won’t abandon those we’ve lost!” The corners of Hajime’s lips twitch upwards, eyes gleaming with love. He’s always had faith in Tooru’s loyalty and pride, and he knows Tooru will never give those up.

“Incoming!” The cry from one of their friends, Takahiro, draws their eyes to the east, and horror paints their expressions. The Earth God holds a barrage of rocks above his crest, ready to rain them down. _Directly at Tooru and Hajime._

“No!” Something shoves into Hajime’s side. Something pushes him out the way, and he casts back his gaze just in time to see the shards of rock and stone impact his fiancé, arms outstretched from where he pushed Hajime clear of the attack.

“ _TOORU_!!!” His scream, high-pitch with terror and fraught with tears, triggers some kind of magical reaction in him, runes of hunter green pulsing as they spread from his body, surging across the ground like they’re travelling through veins, growing and growing and growing and-

“It’s okay, it’s okay... Take a deep breath, Hajime. Shh...” The arms wrapped around him aren’t Tooru’s, but he does recognise them. His self-destructive magic ebbs away and he slumps, only kept on his feet by Takahiro’s tight, worried hug.

“Come on, quickly.” He ushers Hajime over to where Tooru is laying wounded on the ground, ironically in some of the last remaining wildflowers of the battlefield, Issei kneeling by his side and pouring healing magic into the multiple wounds.

“Tooru, oh Tooru, please _please_ pull through...” Hajime drops onto his knees on Tooru’s other side, grasping one of his bloodied hands and holding it close as his other hand presses against Tooru’s cheek, thumb circling desperately.

“Please... Please, don’t leave me, don’t-...” He cuts himself off, choked up and holding back tears. It doesn’t work, the water dripping from his eyes in a steady stream of sorrow.

“Haji... Me...” He gasps, opening eyes he hadn’t realised he’d closed to meet Tooru’s dull gaze, one eye half open and a sad smile on his face. The hand Hajime isn’t cradling, he slowly lifts to press against the one on his cheek, resting his fingers in the spaces between Hajime’s.

“Tooru...” Takahiro talks quietly to Issei, but their faces and solemn, and he shakes his head slowly at Hajime. Hajime doesn’t know if Tooru sees it or not, but he exhales slowly, sighing like he’s accepting something on the horizon.

“The date... It’s- It’s fourteenth...” Hajime understands. He shudders, tightening his grip on Tooru’s hand.

“Then why just you...? Why not me as well...?” Tooru huffs, sounding like a laugh.

“We fought _Gods_ , Hajime... Maybe we broke the cycle...” 

“Look out!” At the last possible second, before a wave of water crashes over them, Takahiro summons a magic dome over them, shielding the four from the attack of the Water God. They watch in horror as corpses and drowning fighters wash past in the surge, whilst they remain safe.

“We’re- We’re going to be the only ones left...” Straining against the attacks that rain down on them, now that they’re the only targets, Takahiro fights with every muscle in his body to keep his friends safe.

“Only three, Taka... I can feel myself dying...” Issei grits his teeth, focusing more of his magic on Tooru’s wounds.

“Don’t say that. I’ll heal you, I promise.” Tooru shakes his head weakly, coughing. Blood splatters out on his chin, rolling off in beads to soak into the wildflowers beneath him, already painted red from the many other wounds. For as much as Issei heals, Tooru bleeds.

“There’s rocks in my lungs... That damn God... It pierced everything but my heart...”

“Tooru, no, please... Please, hold on...” His eyes are dimming. He’s getting colder, weaker, and Hajime can feel him leaving. He clenches his teeth together, moving as close as he can and resting his forehead against Tooru’s, letting his tears fall and wash away streaks of blood from a gash on Tooru’s temple.

“Wait for me... Wait for me, Tooru... I love you.”

“I can’t hold it much longer!” The dome Takahiro struggles to hold up creaks, growing smaller and forcing him to his knees. He’s hurting and his muscles are screaming, and everything cries for him to give up, but if he does that, they all _die_ -

“Takahiro. Let it fall.”

“What?!” He whips his head round to Hajime, still leaning over Tooru, who struggles to breathe, who can’t stay awake, who’s fading rapidly... He’s going to die, no matter what Issei does. The healer closes his eyes in acceptance and removes his hands, stops using his magic.

“It’s okay, ‘Hiro. We’re not going to make it out anyways. Might as well be together, right?” Issei shrugs, as if he’s trying to convince himself just as much as Takahiro. Takahiro presses his lips together tightly and they wobble, a watery sheen over his eyes. 

Slowly, he moves to sit next to Issei, the healer wrapping an arm around his waist, and reaching out to rest his hand on Hajime’s back. Tooru manages a tiny, fragile smile, before he breathes out and closes his eyes. 

In the same instance, Takahiro drops the magic dome.

Dying is... A very familiar sensation, Hajime thinks. Once the pain is over, his soul torn from his broken, bleeding body, it’s like he’s an orb of light, wandering aimlessly around an expanse of pure black. He’s floating, nowhere and everywhere at the same time. He can’t see, can’t hear, can’t feel, but he can sense.

His soul wanders, searching for another. Searches for the familiar pulse of the one he’s come to love so much. He knows that when they’re reincarnated, neither of them will remember the lives that came before. But they’ll be together, and they’ll be in love, just as they always have been.

They’ll remember everything on the 14th October, exactly one year before they die on the same date. Hajime knows, because they’ve done this so many times. Sometimes Takahiro and Issei are with them, sometimes they aren’t. It’d be nice if they were, it’s good to have friends nearby.

Hajime just hopes they’ll be reborn into a peaceful life, one where they won’t die young and afraid. One where the end of their existence will be different from the blood and wildflowers they’ve seen in every life so far.

The one where Hajime had to kill Tooru, his own best friend and eternal lover, is the one he hates most. He doesn’t want anything like that ever again.

As his soul wanders, searching for Tooru’s soul, he crashes into something else familiar. Issei, he knows. Looks like they’ll be reincarnated as a four this time, and he’s thankful. Now he just needs his wishes for a peaceful world to come true.

They find Takahiro next, unsure of how long it’s taken. Souls have no concept of time. They can remain in this black nothingness for years or decades, even _centuries_ , waiting for a chance to be reborn, crossing timelines and universes, searching for a compatible existence for reincarnation.

Something pulls against Hajime. No, it’s too soon, he wants to say, but he is just a soul and cannot speak. The pull is impossible to fight, stealing him like he’s being dragged from deep underwater to the surface. Takahiro and Issei are there too, but they couldn’t find Tooru.

Hajime didn’t find Tooru, and he wonders if this means he’ll be reincarnated without Tooru for the first time in... Ever. He’s never been reincarnated without Tooru before.

Not when they were Victorians, not when they were cats, not when Tooru was the Demon King that Hajime had to kill, not when they were slaughtered mercilessly in the crusades, not when their tribes were killed by white immigrants...

Hajime has never been reincarnated without Tooru, and he doesn’t want this to be the first.

_Tooru, Tooru, **Tooru!**_

“It’s a boy!” He’s born screaming, vocal chords too undeveloped to cry Tooru’s name, and he’s _cold_ , and lonely, and afraid that he’s alone. A blanket is wrapped around him, but he continues crying, even after he’s placed in the arms of his mother for this life. He has mere minutes to remember, mere seconds to try and find Tooru, before he forgets everything.

“Gosh, he’s a loud one.”

“What will you name him?”

“Hajime. Iwaizumi... Hajime. It suits him, don’t you think?” His father laughs, a low rumbling sound that reminds him of rocks crashing into the earth and being pushed asides and-

And?

_What am I forgetting?_ His sobs die down, unsure why he’s crying, when he’s safe and warm and in the arms of parents who love him.

They love him, and they raise him to be a boy who loves in return, one with an adventurous soul and sometimes, wisdom beyond his years that even they can’t comprehend. He wakes up screaming from nightmares on rare occasions - _always October 14th, always that same day_ \- but he can never remember what they were about.

7 years after his reincarnation – not that he knows – Iwaizumi potters around the forest behind the house where they live. It’s huge! It’s incredible! It’s full of bugs to catch and trees to climb, and someone crying and-

Wait a minute.

“Hello?” He calls out, and the distant crying recedes for a moment. He clears his throat, cupping his hands around his mouth.

“Hello! Do you need help?” 

“Yes please!” The upset shout comes back, and Iwaizumi stands to attention. He’s not sure why he wants to go closer when his mother warned him about strangers, but... It almost feels like something is drawing him closer in a way that he can’t understand.

“Keep shouting! I’ll find you!” Following the voice, he goes deeper and deeper into the forest, past where his father set a boundary that he wasn’t allowed to cross, and further still, until he’s almost through the forest. The trees here are further apart, and in a small clearing, in a patch of wildflowers, sits a boy about his age with flouncy brown hair and matching brown eyes, hands clasped over his leg.

Iwaizumi can see a trickle of blood escaping from under the hands, dripping down onto the petals of a buttercup. Slowly, he emerges from the shadow of a pine tree, holding up a hand in greeting, his other holding onto his bug catching net.

“Hi. I’m here to help you. Are you hurt?” The boy looks at him, sniffling. He nods, lifting one hand to wipe away the building tears.

“I fell over and scraped my leg on a rock. It really hurts.” Iwaizumi crouches down next to him, and the boy removes his hands. They both wince, but Iwaizumi recovers quicker.

“It’s not a rock, it’s a _stone_. Hold on, let me try and get it out.” 

“Be- Be quick, okay? It’s okay if it hurts, but not too long.” With a nod, the seven year old scrapes the stone out with his unkept nails, the other boy biting his bottom lip and squeezing his eyes shut with pain.

“There. It’s out.” 

“Thank you! What’s your name? I need to tell my mummy who helped me!”

“Iwaizumi. Iwaizumi Hajime. What about you?” Somehow, Iwaizumi thinks he knows the answer before it comes, helping the boy to stand. The boy gives him a dazzling grin that takes his breath away and makes him blush.

“Oikawa! I’m Oikawa Tooru!” As Iwaizumi helps the boy limp back to his home, he feels like he’s found something he was looking for, even though he didn’t know it, or what it was. He has no idea that he’ll spend the rest of his life with Oikawa, and the only battle they’ll face this time is in volleyball, alongside the friends they had in their previous reincarnation.

He finally has that peaceful world he wished for, Tooru and Hajime together as always.

**Author's Note:**

> I cried twice writing this.
> 
> Happy Inktober 14~!  
> Ironically, on Friday 13th, my internet went down and I'm having to use library internet to upload for the next five days.
> 
> Please Kudos/comment!


End file.
